The Author’s Preface

a damn’d, dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way!⁠⸺⁠kicking it out of the great doors, instead of in ⁠⸺⁠and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind:⁠⸺⁠perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still⁠⸻a litigated point fairly hung up;⁠⸻for instance, Whether John o’Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o’Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not⁠—rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pros and cons required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months⁠⸺⁠and if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an action should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein,⁠⸻such as feints,⁠⸺⁠forced marches,⁠⸺⁠surprises⁠⸺⁠ambuscades⁠⸺⁠mask-batteries, and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides⁠⸻might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that term for a centumvirate of the profession.